Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Looking at the Consumption rate of Capital Income

Theoretically, capital income, especially in the form of retained earnings by corporations and some capital gains would be used for saving and investment in the means of production, while labor income is used for consumption of finished goods and services from production. However, a portion of capital income is used for consumption, when the incentives […]

Walras and The Carpenter

Scott Sumner nods with approbation toward this Ychuan Wang post at Noahpinion. For which hat tip I must thank him because Wang so clearly explicates what he calls the “canonical” understanding, and illustrates so perfectly the wackiness and incoherence of of the Walrasian view: Prices don’t always adjust instantly, so we can have excess supplies […]

Links Aug. 8. 2013

Has the Shale Bubble Already Burst? (Igor Alexeev, Naked Capitalism cross posted from Oil Price) “The average depletion rate of wells in the Bakken Formation (the largest tight oil play in the US) is reported to be 69 percent in the first year and 94 percent over the first five years (37 percent and 50 […]

Angry Bear among top Influential Economics Blogs…Onalytical Indexes

Thank you contributors and readers, it’s true. We are listed at 34th this time, even missing Robert Waldmann and Kenneth Thomas mentions in Paul Krugman’s  New York Times columns this month as rankings were determined in July. Onalytical Indexes publishes their  Top 200 Influential Economics Blogs – Aug 2013 by Andreea Moldovan It’s been several months since […]

Ryan Avent Agrees: Demand Inflation Now!

DIN. We should print up lapel buttons. I suggested this campaign some time ago: This would: • Transfer relative purchasing power (hence power) from holders of financial assets to holders of real assets — from Wall Street to Main Street — and from (relatively few) creditors to (many more) debtors. • Spur both consumption spending […]

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco agrees with Spencer England

There was a flurry of articles trumpeting an effect of Obamacare on the rise in part time employment. Quite a stretch for some with ‘data’. Here the FRBSF weighs in: What’s Behind the Increase in Part-Time Work?    Rob Valletta and Leila Bengali August 26, 2013 Part-time work spiked during the recent recession and has […]

Advertising That Your Child Comes From an Upscale, Graduate-School-Educated Home and Therefore Won’t Need Financial Assistance if (When) He or She is Accepted Into Yale.

One of the really annoying (at least to me) fads among late Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, mainly, I suspect, from the Northeast and the Washington, D.C. area, is the hyphenated-last-name thing for their children.  As in, say, Alex Seitz-Wald, a Millennial blogger at the Washington Post’s The Plum Line, whose post from this morning, […]

Why Banks are “Special”: The Short Story

No, not that kind of “special.” Though it sure is tempting… Paul Krugman, Scott Sumner (seemingly unlikely bedfellows, but…), and most other mainstream economists want to argue that banks are not special — that there’s no reason for economists to understand and analyze their operations in detail, or incorporate those understandings in their (mental and formal) economic […]

Median wages and employment to population ratio

From colleague New Deal Democrat at the Bondadd blog comes this comment and clarification regarding the reporting from this post at Angry Bear: I have left this comment elsewhere, because there is widespread misreporting and misunderstanding of this report. While the data is correct, the conclusion drawn by most of your readers probably is not. The […]